Frontier Exclusive Visionary Interview for hardware, software, system related business and and academia
Frontier Journal (FJ): Prof. Kotter is for Harvard Business School. He is an author of many best sellers, including Leading Changes: Iceberg is Melting, among others. When people hear about your most recent bestseller titled, Leading Changes: Iceberg is Melting, people may think about global warming effect. Is there any similarity between the changes in global natural climate and the changing business climate?
Prof. John Kotter (JK): Sure. It's the same in many ways. The rate of change in business has been going up for some time now. So many organizations struggle with it, even when they see it. And indeed so many people who are convinced that we have very serious climate changes, failing to achieve what they'd like to achieve in terms of solutions to it. So, it's the same. The climate change one is just a much larger problem. But it's the same. It's how do you change yourself and get other people to alter what they're doing, to either take advantage of new opportunities or to duck horrible hazards; and that is a problem for nations, for companies, for any sort of organization today.
FJ: Okay. Business has been studied in America for many decades. Do you think business conduct is an art or a kind of science?
JK: It's both. There are aspects of it that one can apply relatively. It's not close to scientific method to learn about it, and then to teach others about. There are also parts that are hard to study and that are hard to teach. It's both.
FJ: In your bestseller, Leading Change, you identify 8 key steps that can lead to success for change. You mentioned that you, correct me if I'm wrong, you identified that large cost analysis, or cost thinking, is less important than emotional feeling. Could elaborate about that?
JK: We picked up some of that when we wrote Leading Change and we did a follow-up study, a big one, and we titled it the Heart of Change. Basically when we looked at very, very specific stories making great progress in some aspect of a change. You always find when looking at data and analyzing it to change how we think, which in turn changes how we make decisions in that. The second is experiences, compelling actions often visible that in turn hit people's emotions strongly which in turn changes their behavior. What we tend to think about, write about, teach about, is the first. How to gather the data, do the analysis, pass it on to change people's thinking, and that will in turn change people's behavior. But what we found in the study is of the two the second was more important, and more powerful. The second made a bigger difference in success, in trying to push along change efforts. So if you will in the expression that's used at least in English, the great leaders win the hearts and minds of men. There's no question winning the hearts, at least when it comes to change, is more important than winning the minds.
FJ: Okay I see. People tend to see when we are different, we understand whether for start-ups or for well-established companies, change is inevitable and we help to make changes. The key question is what to change, when to change, and how to change. If we know what to change and when to change, it looks like it will be much more easier on how to take steps. What is your opinion?
JK: They're good comments. The 8 steps, 1 is a sense of urgency in a group of people. Then because you have a sense of urgency, pulling a core group that's powerful enough to actually make something happen, that has a mix of skills: like leadership skills, good reputation, connections to various constituencies. As a team the first thing they do of substance is to address the question what to change. They do a good job of it usually, because a) it's the right group and b) they feel such a sense of urgency to do something. Where you have problems is when people don't have a sense of urgency and the right groups are not together and with enough strength to focus on something, it's very difficult to figure out what to change, when to change, how to change. But if there is enough sense of urgency, people want to pay attention constantly to what is going on, spotting trends and problems and opportunities. If people are compelled because of this urgency to watch that, and they're very good at putting together teams of people to address various problems or opportunities. And those people are smart enough and will get enough cooperation from others because other people will feel some sense of urgency to tackle the question of change to what. What is the vision? They'll do a good job of it. Conversely, when you just have a group, a committee, not the right people, not feeling urgency. When they try to address the question of do we change now, to what, etc. They tend not to do a very good job of it.
FJ: Yeah, the evolutionary change and also for startups and well-established companies people might have different points of view on change. For ex: any organization, any people, in conducting business may have fear of changes or worry about potential gains and losses of change. Is there any law of sums in dealing with changes? For example: in your 8 key steps, I would say change identification, change initiation, change execution. And change management. Leadership, motivation, strategy, teamwork, are not that important. The most important is following your gut. Am I right?
JK: Of the two, there's no question... to make any change of any significance. A lot of people in an org. have to change. It's not a matter of one or two. It tends to be... name a kind of change. Trying to implement a new strategy, trying to bring in a mega new IT system, integrate an acquisition; significantly increase how to increase innovation. It requires a lot of people to change what they're doing. It's very difficult to get a lot of people energized and mobilized and past their own fears and past their own resistance because they worry about possible problems for them personally. It's impossible to get enough people on your side, enough people mobilized, enough people beyond that, to make things happen if it's done just with the head. All the power point slides in the world full of interesting information. If we look back in history, all the great leaders who have mobilized people to make extraordinary things happen, how many do we know, at least from historical record, have done it by passing out paper with graphs and numbers? It doesn't work that way. That doesn't mean some thoughtful analysis isn't a part of the whole picture. The main element that captures people is to capture their hearts. It produces the energy and gets them doing things as opposed to resistance.
FJ: I see. Besides change management, you also have been great leadership for many decades. Great leaders actually tend to make decisions based on their great minds, instead of logical thinking based on data analysis or whatever. How do those great leaders stand out of many managers? How do they evolve? Are they born as great leaders, or trained and become great leaders?
JK: The most in depth study I've ever done of that, was of Konosuke Matsushita, the Japanese fellow that founded, Panasonic, National, JVC, Quasar... a huge company. I wrote a biography of him. Worked a number of years, many trips to Japan, many interviews, and Japanese research assistant. What he accomplished was just astonishing, both in building a company with a few hundred thousand jobs from nothing and all of the innovating in both marketing and management methods. In his old age, being influential in the country, with the books that he wrote, the Nobel-type prize that he sponsored and the school of leadership that he created. If you ask the question, as so many people did - how did he do it? Was he born that way? Did he somehow learn it? Who knows? It's impossible. Nobody has the means, at this point, to measure those genetics. We know he was born with something. What a study of his life shows, is that he had this insatiable interest in, capacity to, and willingness to, to just keep learning and growing. So many people stop growing, and I don't mean physically, in terms of their height and weight, in their whole minds and in their whole psychology, their spirit, their skills - they stop growing in their 20s or 30s. People who knew him well, claim he was still growing in his 80s. He had this relentless quest to learn, learn, learn, grow, grow, grow, listen to people, listen to people, and listen to people. This was at the center of why he became such a great leader and accomplished so much. I don't think his case was unique. I think in general you're born with something; some potential, and then the greats just develop it relentlessly from being young to middle-aged, right on to very late in life.
FJ: I see. In terms of a leader and leadership. Any business, whether small or big, it is a highly complicated eco system. You mentioned, when we dealing with change in business world. It is associated with people, coach, organization, and business process. And a whole lot of other things. Now anything can be changed, of course, people can also be changed. Now if we look at Apple. It is different in that Apple the company has been having... And if we look at another big company, GE, it has been heavy influenced by Jack Welch. The influence degree is less heavy than Apple, which is done by Steve Jobs. So that's about coach or something like this. Can you identify any intimacies, between leadership and change in business?
JK: It goes both ways. If you look at what great leaders do, is they constantly produce change for the better. They found companies and create lots of jobs, they take companies and make them grow faster; make them prosper more, because they produce changes that are smart. What management is all about is taking an organization, taking a complex system, and making it function the way it was designed to function. What leadership is all about is creating those systems that managers manage and constantly changing them to take advantage of external change, new opportunities and new hazards. Both Mr. Jobs and Mr. Welch were just phenomenal at that. Jobs in particular in taking advantage of new technologies. And Mr. Welch taking advantage of all kinds of things. I know Jack, I do not know Steve. Jack was terrific at having teams of people underneath him who were also terrific leaders. From the beginning it was a group of 3 of them. Nobody pays attention to that anymore. It was Jack Welch, Larry Bossidy, and Ed Hood. He expected and demanded they would have layers of people who knew more than just how to run the organization on a daily basis, but who knew how to provide the leadership to push it into the future. And literally thousands of people are what he thought. This notion of you've got to get lots of people who are not only managing well, but helping to provide the leadership to move these complex organizations into the future, in a world that changes on us.
FJ: One more question, for business to be successful, besides our change mentality what else is most important?
JK: So much is tied up in with the change thing. I would go back and say what we were just talking about. Leadership is so important, and not just from the top guy, although that's essential. Again, if the world were more stable, if this was thousands and thousands of years ago when nothing much happened, as opposed to today when technology is developing relentlessly, whether we like it or not globalization is proceeding, both with huge ripple effects that effect everybody. Marketing skills are important for sure. Technology skills are important for sure. We could go down the list of all the components that make up and are needed to run a business. But nothing I think is more important than the leadership stuff, and having enough people who can do that. That's my belief.
FJ: People are most important as leaders. You are educating the next changing leaders. Thank you so much, Professor Kotter.
Back to Home Page